Critical success factors that contribute to project success

Abstract

This master thesis explores critical success factors that contribute to project success. A pathway to success is presented with nine success factors that are critical in order to achieve project success for oil and gas projects. The critical success factors that are presented are 1) Reservoir complexity, 2) Appraisal strategy, 3) Reservoir front-end loading, 4) Scope and technology, 5) Team integration, 6) Facility front-end loading, 7) Well front-end loading, 8) Target setting and 9) Project execution discipline. I have chosen to have my main focus on two of these success drivers; target setting and project execution discipline. The reason for this is that I wanted to have my main focus on Project Management. The study attempts to determine if target setting and/or execution discipline contribute to project success. In order to identify this relationship a qualitative and quantitative research was conducted. Ten hypotheses based on theory and IPA’s previous findings were formulated. The hypotheses state the relationship between cost and schedule (dependent variables) and the following independent variables: target setting, project control, team development, project manager turnover and major late changes. To test the hypotheses and explore the relationship between the independent and the dependent variables a regression and a correlation analysis were conducted. The results and main findings are presented below. The statistical results proved that: A cost overrun could have been avoided by setting conservative targets A cost overrun could have been avoided by having good project control I found relationships between the following factors: Cost overrun could have been avoided by good team development Schedule overrun could have been avoided by good team development Target setting has no influence on production attainment IV However, the sample size was too small in order to be confident that these results were not caused by random factors. More projects have to be included in the analysis and further research has to be done. I found relationships between the following factors: Schedule overrun could have been avoided by setting conservative targets Schedule overrun could have been avoided by having good project control. However, the significance level was not high enough to be confident that these findings are not caused by random factors. I did not get reliable results from the analysis of the independent variables; project manager turnover and major late changes. The reason for this is that only 3 of 17 projects in my sample did not experience turnovers and only 2 of 17 projects did not have major late changes. This affect the results and more projects have to be included and further research has to be done in these areas to avoid results caused by random factors. The results from the analysis indicate that: Project Manager Turnover do not increase schedule slips Project Manager Turnover increase cost overrun Major Late Changes do not increase schedule slips Major Late Changes do not increase cost overrun The reason that my results showed that major late changes did not increase schedule slips was due to the projects that did not experience major late changes. One of these projects had a schedule slip, while the other project did not have a schedule slip. This affected the results and these findings are caused by random factors. There are also reason to believe that major late changes effect on cost overrun were due to random factors.